President owes Mitt Romney an apology

The commander-in-chief sneered at his Republican opponent. Mitt Romney was the recipient of Barack Obama's scorn after suggesting that Russia was America's top geopolitical challenge.

"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back," Mr. Obama scoffed during their second presidential debate, "because the Cold War has been over for 20 years."

With Russian tanks rolling west, the chuckling from Obama's corner has stopped.

Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine put Europe and the world on edge. And as the Russian demigod prepares to celebrate his conquest of Crimea in a Ukrainian parade this weekend, the White House's foreign policy looks more feckless and impotent than ever before. Given the events of the last 20 months since their presidential debate, I think President Obama owes Mitt Romney an apology.

Barack Obama, like George W. Bush before him, has been so desperate to champion a strategic reset with Russia that he is the one who has ended up looking foolish. Mr. Bush embarrassed himself by declaring that he had looked into Vladimir Putin's soul and liked what he saw. The current president fell into a similar trap during a 2012 trip to South Korea where a "hot mic" caught the American president kowtowing to Putin.

"On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it's important for him to give me space," Obama whispered to Dmitry Medvedev while referring to Putin. "Yeah, I understand," Medvedev said.

"This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility," Obama added. "I understand," Medvedev replied. "I will transmit this information to Vladimir."

Vladimir got the message, alright, that Barack Obama would continue undercutting trusted allies like Poland and the Czech Republic in favor of a Russian leader who has propped up terrorists from Damascus to Tehran. Because of the administration's weakness, Putin spent the last two years propping up a Syrian regime that has killed over 100,000 of its own people and an Iranian regime that has promised to build a nuclear weapon and "wipe Israel off the face of the earth."

White House apologists weakly state that there is little the United States can do. That's just wrong. We should redeploy one of our Army divisions in Germany eastward to Poland. And we should announce tomorrow that America will once again work with that country and the Czechs to deploy a missile defense weapons system that Mr. Obama canceled in hopes of winning over Mr. Putin.

Barack Obama and the president that follows him might as well give up on that fool's errand. Vladimir Putin, the former KGB thug, only understands strength. Maybe that's why Barack Obama finds himself in such trouble. His foreign-policy strategy of leading from behind won't stop Syria from killing another 100,000 citizens, or stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, or get Russia out of Ukraine. Showing real leadership will.

It's past time that Americans get that kind of leadership from their commander-in-chief.